Presumed Guilty
Page 34
“I suspected something,” he said, “but guilty of what?”
During the three weeks of our picking a jury, no one gave a better answer.
“Guilty, yeah, but of what?”
It was the basic definition of our case. We weren’t going to parade Casey up there as being completely innocent, but we certainly weren’t going to let them say she was guilty of murder. This was somebody who wanted it proven to him, rather than his just assuming it.
There was another thing we liked about him. While he was initially okay with jury service, the next day he came back to say the school he worked for had a course they were offering him, and he wasn’t sure he would get that course if he had to leave to be a juror. Basically he didn’t want on, which made us like him even more, because we then knew he wasn’t a stealth juror.
He ended up serving, and from the first day of the trial he was the one who took the most notes, and we all knew he was going to be the foreman.
And then there was juror number twelve. She was a sixty-one-year-old Caucasian female who worked for Publix supermarkets as a cook in the deli department. She was the only juror who was strongly in favor of the death penalty, and the reason she made the jury was that Judge Perry didn’t give us any additional peremptory challenges, and we couldn’t strike her. Even so, I felt, Eleven out of twelve isn’t bad at all.
In fact, when we were done, I thought to myself, This is a phenomenal jury—fair and impartial. I don’t think I’ve ever picked a better one.
CHAPTER 24
A FLOWER IN THE ATTIC
I HAD A COUPLE OF DAYS before the start of the trial to fine-tune my opening statement. I estimated it was going to be about two hours long, and my biggest challenge was how to keep the jury’s attention for that length of time, especially after sitting through two hours of listening to Linda Drane Burdick.
My idea was to keep them alert and awake through the use of different types of visual aids. The idea was to blow up whatever point I wanted to make. This is where Jim Lucas was so creative. I used the standard trial exhibits which sat on an easel, and in addition Jim created a magnetic board for me to put up information as I was making a point; I had a hand board—smaller-sized exhibits I could hold in my hand—giving me the opportunity to get closer to the jury to better create a bond with them; I used a standard PowerPoint so the jurors could use the television screens in front of their seats; and I used a standard whiteboard that I could write on. The purpose of these different types of visual aids was to stimulate the jurors’ visual perspective in different ways to keep them interested.
I also brought with me a tape measure to demonstrate how close Caylee’s remains were to the street. I wanted to show that she was on the side of the road to be found, not in the woods to be hidden.
I was ready. I knew the facts backward and forward. I had gone over my opening countless times. My detractors always talked about my swagger and my cockiness, but my confidence came from being prepared. It was nothing more than that. I knew going in that I knew the case better than anyone in that courtroom, and it was only through hard work that you get that way. One of my favorite expressions is “Opportunity favors the prepared mind.”
One of the things my mother always said to me was, “If you want to be the best, study the best, and become better.” The week before the opening statement I would turn off the sound of the ballgame and read Clarence Darrow’s autobiography, The Story of My Life, and read his closing arguments in the Leopold and Loeb case. I watched trials of the old masters like Johnnie Cochran in the O. J. Simpson murder trial. I watched Roy Black during the William Kennedy Smith trial. I watched Gerry Spence, any of the masters, to see what made them persuasive. I had studied them before, but they always served as a great refresher.
I knew this was going to be my moment, that if I did it right, someday people would watch me.
THE TRIAL DAY CAME, and I wasn’t nervous. Rather I was anxious, like a racehorse ready to burst out of the gate. I had the feeling, I can’t wait to go. As usual, I drove to Cheney Mason’s office opposite the Orlando courthouse and parked in his garage. We’d meet in his office and walk across the street together. That day I was carrying Clarence Darrow’s autobiography with me, intending to read a passage or two during breaks in the proceedings.
From across the street in front of the courthouse, I could see the media vultures getting ready to pounce. As soon as we crossed, they attacked us, and it was far more chaotic and hectic than I had ever seen before, except for the first time when we got Casey out of jail. The crush of media was overwhelming, but we kept walking forward, and I felt like a boxer surrounded by his entourage getting ready to walk into the ring.
They threw questions at me left and right, but I didn’t answer any of them. I was determined not to speak to the media during the course of the trial.
I remember hearing one question from a reporter, who said, “Jose, you look like you have a little extra bounce in your step. Are you expecting to drop some major bombshells today?”
Oh shit, I thought to myself, you better calm down. I don’t want to come across as overconfident.
I didn’t answer her.
When we reached the courtroom, I couldn’t believe how packed it was. There was real tension in the air, and for the first time in my career a little nervousness crept in. I knew my entire defense team was looking for me to start this trial off with a bang.
In a trial, you always want to start strong. The opening statement is critical because it gives the jurors a framework from which they will look at the evidence. If you don’t set up the framework at the outset, it becomes very difficult to make them see it in the middle of the trial.
After we walked in, in came the prosecution, Frank George, Jeff Ashton, and Linda Drane Burdick, who was wearing a red jacket. In the three years I had known her, she had never worn anything but gray or blue. Nothing flashy. Nothing bright. Plus she had had her hair done, and she looked very nice. It was as though she had gone on one of those television shows and had had a makeover.
She got up and began her presentation. She began with something like, “The time has come to tell a story of a little girl named Caylee,” and right away I knew the prosecution was going to do exactly what I was sure it would do: appeal to the jury’s emotions.
Who’s going to be able to overcome the death of a beautiful little girl? Let me grab your hearts and keep them.
Her approach was no surprise. The prosecutor’s number-one card, one that they always play, is to try to appeal to the jurors’ emotions, trying to get them angry about the crime. After all, isn’t that what the television news does all of the time? That’s why the prosecutor and the TV news reporters work so well together.
While the prosecution was appealing to the jurors’ emotions, I knew that I was going to have to appeal to their intellect. Of course, if I could grab their emotions here and there, it wouldn’t hurt.
One thing I’ve noticed about prosecutors: They always have themes and expressions, which are usually ridiculous. In this case Burdick’s theme revolved around Day One, Casey did this, Day Two, she did this, Day Three, she did this, until she went through the entire thirty days when Caylee went missing. The mistake she made was that thirty days is a long time, and the jurors got bored. In fact, they had to take a break right in the middle of her opening statement.
She started talking about the events of Day One, and then Day Two, and then Day Three, Day Four, and so on. While she was recounting Casey’s activities for the thirty days, ten times she must have said, “Where’s Caylee?” But she left out the key question, which was not, Where’s Caylee? Rather the most important question—and my focus—would be, What happened to Caylee? How did she die?
My mentor, Rick DeMaria, taught me to take the prosecution’s ridiculous theme and bring it up again and again to make it seem as ridiculous as it is. And that’s what I did with Linda Burdick’s Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four recitation. Over and over I told the jury, this case isn
’t about Casey’s actions during those thirty days.
No, this case is about one thing and one thing only: How did Caylee die?
I WAS ALSO A STUDENT of Steve Jobs. He would give brilliant presentations; I would study his Apple product releases. I saw how when Jobs spoke he always told his audience at the outset exactly what he intended to say in his talk. I did that in my opening statement. I wanted to explain to the jury what I was going to tell them.
I broke it down into five areas.
“First off,” I said, “I would like to tell you what happened. We sat through almost two hours. There was Day One, Day Two, Day Three, Day Four, and so on and so on, but no one ever told you what happened. But today you will be the first people to know exactly what happened to Caylee Marie Anthony.”
The second area of focus was Roy Kronk. I told the jury that his was a name not mentioned in Burdick’s opening statement. I told the jurors that his role would be crucial in deciding their evaluation of the case.
The third area I was going to discuss was the investigation by the police. I told the jurors that the police were very thorough when it came to investigating Casey, but that their investigation was directed at one person and one person only.
“At what point do we stop speculating?” I asked the jury. “At what point do we stop guessing? At what point do we stop being so desperate?”
The fourth area I was going to focus on, I told them, was Suburban Drive, where Caylee’s remains were found.
“There are numerous suspicious circumstances surrounding that location,” I said, “and I want to make sure it’s brought to light to you.
“I want to make sure you understand what was there, who was there, and for how long.”
And then I said we were going to talk about Casey’s car.
“The evidence, or the lack of evidence, or the confusion of the evidence that surrounds this car,” I said, “will probably double, if not triple, the length of this trial.” I said that by the end of the trial they would be asking themselves whether the evidence about the car would have any relevance at all.
Then I talked about the fantastic nature of forensic evidence. I told them the state’s case would be more science fiction than science. I didn’t spend a lot of time discussing the forensics because they hadn’t been educated yet about it. I was going to wait until the closing arguments to discuss the finer details that made the forensics so powerful for us. Then I explained how Caylee died.
“Now, everyone wants to know what happened,” I said. “How in the world can a mother wait thirty days before ever reporting her child missing? It’s insane. It’s bizarre. Something’s just not right about that. Well, the answer is actually relatively simple. She never was missing. Caylee Anthony died on June 16, 2008, when she drowned in her family’s swimming pool.”
I told the jurors not to be distracted by emotion. This was a theme I would come back to over and over. I said the levels of distraction might even reach the bizarre, but that they should never forget that this is a first-degree murder case.
“They want to take someone’s life,” I said.
But then I told them, “This is not a murder case. This is not a manslaughter case. This is not a case of aggravated child abuse. This is none of those things. But you can’t be distracted.”
I then made the point that the Anthony family was extremely dysfunctional. This, I knew, would make them sit up and take notice.
“You will hear about ugly things, secret things, things that people don’t speak about. Things that Casey never spoke about.”
I invited the jury to come with me to Hopespring Drive, what looked like an all-American home.
“You never know what secrets lie within,” I said. “You never know what’s going on.”
I began to give them a look at the evidence that would explain her strange behavior after Caylee’s disappearance.
I told the jury, “On June 16, 2008, after Caylee died, Casey did what she’s been doing all her life, or most of it. Hiding her pain. Going into that dark corner and pretending that she does not live in the situation she’s living in. She went back to that deep ugly place called denial to pretend as if nothing was ever wrong.”
And I told them they’d hear evidence of this and that and in the end, they would conclude that something was not right with her.
I then gave them information that they didn’t hear from the prosecution: that Casey was an excellent mother.
“The child never went without food,” I said, “never went without clothing, without shelter. You won’t hear a single person come up here and testify how she was neglected or abused. There are no broken bones, no trips to the hospital, no moment that would help you determine that this child was abused or anything but loved by all the members of the family.”
“Especially her mother.”
I then began to talk about the abuse.
“You see,” I said, “this family must keep its secrets quiet. And it all began when Casey was eight years old and her father came into her room and began to touch her inappropriately, and it escalated and escalated.”
“What does a sex abuse survivor look like? Do they have a tattoo on their forehead? We can be sitting next to a sex abuse victim and not even know it. These things are kept quiet. And these ugly secrets slowly will come out through this trial.”
I told them that by the end of the trial they would come to know why Casey acted the way she did, and why she acted as though nothing was wrong.
I gave them subtle evidence that Casey hadn’t committed a crime.
“She didn’t run,” I said. “She didn’t move to California, to New York. She didn’t say to her parents, ‘Sorry, you’re never going to see your granddaughter again.’”
“That would have been the easiest thing for her to do.”
“Instead,” I said, “she acted as if it never happened.”
I THEN TALKED ABOUT how Casey pretended she had a job and how she pretended she had a nanny.
“Is that normal?” I asked. “Is that what normal people do? They pretend they’re going to work? They have fake emails from work?”
I told the jury there was a reason she did this. I told them she did it to protect Caylee from abuse, as she had been abused.
“Anything Casey could do to protect her child she did,” I told the jury, “including living a lie, making up a nanny, making up a job. That’s what Casey had to do to live. She forced herself to live in a world that she wanted, not the one she was thrust into.”
I told the jury how when she became pregnant, the family hushed it up. I told them about the wedding she went to when she was seven-and-a-half months pregnant, and how Cindy and George denied she was pregnant. The exclamation point was when I showed them a picture of a pregnant Casey who was clearly showing, less than two months from giving birth. The jury had to wonder: why did the Anthonys claim they didn’t know she was pregnant?
“The entire family wanted to keep it quiet,” I said. “And if they hid this child, this beautiful child, in life, you can best believe that they would hide her in death.”
I told the jurors, “They hid this child like a flower in the attic.” I said it on purpose. We had seven women who would decide Casey’s fate, and most of them were old enough to remember the movie or the book about four abused and mistreated children who were the product of incest, and I could see a look of recognition on some of their faces. It was an important moment where I could feel we had made a connection.
About an hour and a half into my opening, I asked the jurors if they wanted to recess, because I knew they were tired around that time when Burdick was speaking to them. Also we had a few smokers on the panel. I stood three feet from them, and I asked them, “Do you want to take a break?”
None of them did, and it wasn’t what they said as much as how they said it. I could see in their eyes they were saying, No way. Don’t stop now. I want to hear more.
I knew at that point we were on the right track.
“You’re going to hear all kinds of bizarre family behavior that just doesn’t make sense,” I said.
I them told them about how George was making statements incriminating Casey for Caylee’s murder.
I told them Casey was the way she was because of who raised her. I became more graphic. I told them, “Casey was raised to lie. This child, at eight years old, learned to lie immediately. She could be thirteen years old, have her father’s penis in her mouth, and then go to school and play with the other kids as if nothing ever happened. Nothing’s wrong.”
I told them this information should help them understand why no one knew her child was dead.
“Sex abuse does things to us. It changes you,” I said. “Some people are fortunate to live with it. [Meaning survive it and move on.] Others are not, and in this sad tragedy, it had to happen to Casey.”
Then I described to them—and to the public—how Caylee died, and I did something the prosecution couldn’t do. I had photos of the house, of the sliding door leading to the pool, and to the backyard and the pool, and I was able to help the jurors visualize the scene.
I told the whole story of June 16, how George woke Casey and started yelling at her, “Where’s Caylee?” How they searched the house, the bedrooms under the beds, the closets, in the garage, and then they went outside.
I talked about the above-ground pool and the ladder that was up, and how Casey saw George holding Caylee’s body, and how she cried and cried.
Then I told them how George had yelled at her, “Look what you’ve done,” and “Your mother will never forgive you,” and “You’ll go to jail for child neglect.”
I told the jury that Casey should have been stronger, that she should have called 9-1-1.